“Amy,” the Unacquired Tech Worker

Have you heard about “Amy,” the unaquired tech worker She was the only worker in her five-person company not hired by Google when they acquired the company. Ouch. As part of the acquisition, Google paid off investors and gave each worker, including Amy, $10,000. Still, that’s a far cry from the $250,000 starting salaries her former coworkers received from the tech giant.

She was also a female and a designer, two of the reasons she cites as probable causes. Her four co-workers were engineers.

“Google was interested in buying my 5 person company for our team. They hired everyone but me.”

She doesn’t seem to be taking the news too well. In an anonymous interview with a New York Magazine reporter, she says “I feel like I have no power, that this happened to me, and it’s my fault,” she said. “I feel so betrayed. And, at this point, I don’t really feel like I have it in me to fail again.” This quote is one of many which reveal a currently downtrodden attitude.

We understand the crushing disappointment. But we think she would benefit from a new perspective. Amy didn’t fail anymore than the rest of the group succeeded. Their company was out of money, and in a simple business transaction that had nothing to do with Amy and everything to do with Google hiring engineers, Google “acquired” the company for a lump sum and the engineers.

Amy’s resume now includes building a start-up from the ground up and it being acquired by Google of all companies. She has the important experience of seeing a start-up from beginning to end. She will learn to survive a what has been to her a heartbreaking disappointment – something we all go through – learn from it, and move on.

If anything, Amy may wonder why her CEO didn’t get her a decent severance package from the deal. He may not have had her interests at heart. She also might check in with her former work colleagues months down the road to see if they’re actually happy in their newly acquired positions, as acquired workers don’t always get put on the projects they enjoy versus if they’d gone out – like Amy is hopefully going to do – and hand selected projects they find fulfilling.